


just a dream

by marmolita



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Altissia, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 11:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13879695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmolita/pseuds/marmolita
Summary: Noctis was supposed to wear this suit at his wedding.  Ignis was supposed to help him dress, look him over, smile and comment on how nice he looked.But Ignis is blind, and while Noctis is heading to the temple, it's not for his wedding.





	just a dream

**Author's Note:**

> It's hurt Noct week day 5 and I didn't quite hit "grief vs duty after Altissia" but I sure hit "grief after Altissia." This fic is entirely inspired by Carrie Underwood's ["Just a Dream."](https://youtu.be/luJcsPRngNE) (forgive me for swapping the pronouns in the lyrics below)
> 
> My own kinkmeme prompt: https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/4747.html?thread=9065099#cmt9065099
> 
> Warnings: involves grief, mourning, panic attacks (or similar), and dissociation.

_ It's like I'm looking from a distance, _ __  
_ Standing in the background _ __  
_ Everybody's saying, she's not coming home now, _ __  
_ This can't be happening to me _ _  
_ _ This is just a dream_

 

They ride to the temple in a caravan of gondolas, black cloth draped over the bows with white flower arrangements carefully placed on top.  Noctis stares down at his hands, folded in his lap so that he can dig his fingernails into his palms; his skin looks pale against the fine black fabric of his slacks.  Ignis had pulled the suit out of their luggage the previous day with Prompto's assistance, and passed it along to Secretary Claustra's staff for ironing.  He'd helped Noctis dress, fingers smoothing his jacket and adjusting his collar and sash by touch alone.

Noctis was supposed to wear this suit at his wedding.  Ignis was supposed to help him dress, look him over, smile and comment on how nice he looked.

But Ignis is blind, and while Noctis is heading to the temple, it's not for his wedding.

The notebook sits beside him on the small gondola bench, and Noctis glances at it, pressing his lips together to stop the relentless trembling of his mouth.

*

Noctis walks tall into the temple, flanked by his retainers in their formal uniforms.  Luna's wedding dress is draped over an empty coffin on the altar.  He almost loses his composure when he sees the bouquet of sylleblossoms lying atop it, his throat closing up so he can hardly breathe, but somehow he makes it to the front row.  He sits down, clutching the notebook tightly in his hands -- it's all he has left of what his life might have been.

Secretary Claustra steps up to the pulpit first, welcoming the mourners and expressing her condolences to the whole of Tenebrae.  Her words are a carefully crafted bit of diplomacy, never straying from the knife's edge that Accordo walks with Niflheim.  There's nothing in what she says about the tragic passing of the Oracle that feels like it's about  _ Luna _ .  Noctis knows that he should step up and give a speech as well -- thank the people of Accordo, vow to carry out Luna's mission, give them hope in a dark place . . . but he can't do it.  Not when every breath he takes feels like it's pulled unwilling  from his lungs; not when his last dream of a happy future has crumbled.

To aid the king is the calling of the Oracle, Luna said, and Noctis always imagined that meant they would face the darkness together, triumph together, be--

"Breathe," Gladio murmurs, and Noctis clenches his fists and draws a breath.

The priestess takes over from Secretary Claustra and performs the ritual blessings.  The choir sings, angelic children's voices soaring across the high rafters of the sanctuary.  Noctis closes his eyes, unable to stop his tears.  Luna would have loved the music.  She sang in a choir when she was a child, and she sang him to sleep on more than one occasion during those few months he spent in Tenebrae.  He's never going to get to hear her sing again.

When the choir finishes, the priestess invites any who would like to speak to step forward.  A line forms, people from all walks of life, wanting to pay their respects to the Oracle.  A mother whose child Luna healed; a young man she had given a second chance at life; an elderly woman who would not have been able to care for her orphaned grandson without the Oracle's healing.

Each one of them is just another reminder to Noctis that Luna's never going to be able to heal anyone again.  His head feels hot and fuzzy from spending so many hours crying the past few days, and as the speeches continue, he starts to feel like he's watching this from the outside.  There's the notebook, clutched in his lap.  There's Prompto, crying quietly next to him.  There's Gladio, stone-faced and solid.  Ignis, inscrutable behind his dark glasses.  A crowd of Accordans and Tenebraeans who were able to be here, all of them knowing her as the Oracle, not as Luna.

He feels separated from his body the way he does in the moments just before waking from a dream.  Maybe he's going to wake up now.  Maybe none of this is real, it's just a dream, and he's going to wake up safe and sound and Luna will be alive, and that future he'd just been starting to dare to imagine could still come to pass.

The choir starts singing again, and the mourners file out of the temple.  Noctis is brought back to himself by Prompto's hand on his shoulder, but he doesn't get up.  Not until the temple is empty of everyone save the four of them and the priestess, because he isn't sure that his legs will hold him.  Finally, he rises.  His knees wobble briefly, but he recovers, and walks up to the altar.

The dress is softer than he imagined.  Luna would have looked beautiful in it.

The guys give him space when his shoulders hunch and the tears come again, but eventually Ignis says, "Noct, the gondola is waiting.  I'm afraid we have to go."

"Yeah," Noctis chokes out.  He takes one of the sylleblossoms from the bouquet and presses it into the notebook, just beside the last one Luna sent.  "Let's go."

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @marmolita if you want to cry about Noctis with me!


End file.
